Accountability projects that track deleted tweets from politicians and public officials suffered a critical setback this week when Twitter killed their ability to collect that information. This move comes a few months after the service shut down the U.S. version of Politwoops, the best known of these projects, and extends the ban to some 30 other jurisdictions. It would be a disappointing move by any platform so popular among politicians, but especially so for Twitter—which as a company has fought vociferously for its users' rights, and made its stance as the "free speech wing of the free speech party" a component of its corporate culture, and a selling point for new sign-ups around the world. Journalists have drawn parallels between Twitter's decision and Europe's "right to be forgotten," which allows individuals to delist "irrelevant" information about themselves from search engines. Of course, there are some major…
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